Drafted 19th overall by the New York Rangers in 2009, Chris Kreider is third in scoring from his class with 326 goals in 883 games.
The only players he trails are John Tavares (494 goals) and Matt Duchene (371), and they’ve played 301 and 255 more games, respectively.
The kid from Boston College has been one of the NHL’s most dangerous goal scoring power forwards over 12 seasons with the Rangers, scoring at least 30 goals three times (all since 2022) and topping out at a career-best 52 tallies in 2021-22.
It’s fair to say Kreider exceeded his draft slot as a consistent part of an organization that reached one Stanley Cup Final and another four conference finals with him on the roster.
Ah, but if one thing is certain about the makeup of pro sports teams, it’s that they will change over time. Heart player Barclay Goodrow was offloaded to San Jose last summer via waivers, and that was just the first move away from a “leadership group” type of player. Captain Jacob Trouba (threatened with waivers) was traded to Anaheim midway through this season, and trade rumours have followed Kreider since November.
On Thursday, Kreider was finally traded, sent to Anaheim along with a 2025 fourth-round draft pick for prospect Carey Terrance and a 2025 third rounder.
Now, only seven players from New York’s 2022 conference final team remain.
It’s no secret that general manager Chris Drury was seeking change to the roster this summer after the on-ice results fell from a Presidents’ Trophy-winning team in 2024 to one that couldn’t qualify for the playoffs. Mike Sullivan was hired to be the new head coach, and that itself will bring a new message and direction. Trading Kreider, the longest-tenured Ranger, indicates a hard break from the past, but the timing was necessary for a few reasons.
One is that Kreider simply struggled this past season. He still managed 22 goals, but he added only eight assists for the lowest point total (30) of his career. At 34 years old, that could be the start of age-related decline, but Kreider said he also dealt with several injuries through the season.
“Just a bunch of weird, fluky things this year. First half of the year I was trying to get my back figured out and then when I got that figured out I had a weird illness coming out of Christmas break that went to my inner ear, got vertigo,” he said. “And then finally when I felt like I was getting a little better rhythm, getting traction, felt healthy, back felt good, I messed up my hand. It was challenging.”
The other reason had everything to do with money. Before Thursday’s trade with Anaheim, the Rangers had only $8.42 million in cap space with RFA defenceman K’Andre Miller and forward Will Cuylle still to sign. New York managed to swing a trade that included the full freight of Kreider’s remaining contract (two years, $6.5 million cap hit), so now it has almost $15 million with which to work.
And Drury is most certainly not done.
Kreider had to waive his partial no-move clause for Anaheim, and in doing so he rejoins friend Trouba and several other former Rangers. The Ducks have a good young core of players accumulated through rebuilding years, but they’re now eyeing a return to relevance and stand as a team to watch on the trade and free-agency front all summer.
Can Kreider help with that?
And what kind of prospect are the Rangers getting back in Terrance?
With more on the Kreider trade, we turn to our scout Jason Bukala.
Scout’s analysis
My first reaction to the trade was one of relief for Rangers fans. Not because of Kreider’s play specifically, but more due to the fact it opens up much-needed cap space for the Blueshirts.
The bulk of those dollars are likely to go to two key pending restricted free agents — Cuylle and Miller — and should allow the Rangers to match a salary for either player if another club attempted to offer sheet them.
Drury has been attempting to reset his roster for several months. The organization clearly wants to go in another direction with their veteran group.
Kreider ends his Rangers career third all-time in goals (326), first in playoff goals (48) and eighth in games played (883). He’s coming off a down year offensively but he did miss time with injury, and the amount of noise around the team last year must have had an effect on the morale of the group in addition to its play on the ice.
Just two seasons ago, Kreider scored 39 goals and 36 assists and was a plus-19. He was generally engaged, at times hard to play against, and whistled for 75 penalty minutes. His ice time has consistently ranged from 17-19 minutes per game for several years and he continues to be deployed in all situations. He’s especially proficient finding pucks from the middle of the ice on the power play and adds another layer of offence to the up-and-coming Ducks roster.
As for the Ducks, they are clearly positioning themselves to take the next step as an organization. They went out and hired Joel Quenneville as head coach and still have over $32 million in available cap space to add to the roster this summer. Their power play finished last in the league (11.8 per cent) this past season and adding Kreider should improve that number. I’m anticipating the Ducks getting aggressive in free agency as well.
Terrance projects as a third-line forward for me. He’s a six-foot-one, 187-pound winger who can play quickly and has the speed to track up and down the ice on time. He’s likely to produce secondary offence and he plays with enough detail to match up versus top six forwards and kill penalties.
He averaged over 18 minutes per game at the junior level and was deployed in all situations. He produced 20 goals and 19 assists in 45 regular-season games for the Erie Otters. Many of his goals came off the rush or as a result of him jumping to open space after coming off the boards and escaping traffic.
